There are several examples of tick-borne diseases of Homo sapiens;[1,2] the most topical at present is Lyme disease.
LYME DISEASEThis consists of a tick-borne zoonosis (in its natural cycle, rodents and hard ticks of the Ixodes ricinus complex are involved) caused by Borrelia burgdorferi;[3–5] clinical manifestations can be divided into acute and chronic forms involving the skin, joints, nervous system, and pericardium, endocardium and myocardium. Deer and other mammals form a reservoir of infection.
HistoryThe disease was first described in the mid-1970s in the USA, following an outbreak in children at Lyme, Connecticut. However, it occurs throughout much of the Northern Hemisphere and is the most common ‘tick-borne’ diseases are seen in Europe, Russia and, to a lesser extent, Asia (especially South-east Asia). Suspected but unsubstantiated cases of Lyme borreliosis have been documented in …
